1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication networks and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for interfacing a customer with a call center.
2. Description of the Related Art
Call centers are used in many instances to sell products or to provide support for previously sold products. In a typical call center, a customer will make a call and be prompted to enter information to enable that caller to be routed to an appropriate sales or support person, referred to herein as “agents.” Examples of information that may be collected by the call center software include demographic information, personal information, intent information associated with the reason the person is calling the call center, and other general information. The call center software may also collect information about the call itself, such as caller ID information. This information may be used to route the call within the call center and may also be used to populate fields in the call center's customer relationship management (CRM) software program. For example, the call center software may request the caller to enter information about the preferred language, select an option associated with the purpose of the call, and optionally enter additional information such as an account number and password or secret code. Frequently, this results in a caller entering lots of information via the telephone keypad, which is relatively inconvenient for the caller. Indeed, some callers become frustrated by the process and simply hang up rather than proceeding through the process, thus resulting in a lack of a sales opportunity for the call center or a dissatisfied customer without the ability to obtain effective customer support.
In an on-line context, the circumstances are the same. Specifically, an on-line support desk will frequently require the user to fill in information about themselves prior to passing the information to an on-line sales or support agent. While this information may be supplied by the user's computer, this method is ineffective where the user has disabled the use of cookies, or where the computer is a shared computer and does not already contain the user's information.